Michel Breistroff (February 5, 1971 – July 17, 1996) was a French professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

defenceman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the latter a reference to ...

. Breistroff was born in

Roubaix Roubaix ( or ; nl, Robaais; vls, Roboais) is a city in northern France, located in the Lille metropolitan area on the Belgian border. It is a historically mono-industrial commune in the Nord department, which grew rapidly in the 19th century ...

, France. A graduate in

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, he died at 25 in the crash of

TWA Flight 800 Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (TWA800) was a Boeing 747-100 that exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, on July 17, 1996, at about 8:31pm. EDT, 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Internationa ...

off Long Island, New York. He was playing professional ice hockey for French league team Gothiques d'Amiens at the time of his death. He also played with the France national team during the 1996 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. As a passenger on

, he was killed when the plane exploded shortly after takeoff in 1996.One Last Moment for Michel Breistroff
/ref> His then-fiancée, Heidi Snow, subsequently created

AirCraft Casualty Emotional Support Services AirCraft Casualty Emotional Support Services ("ACCESS") is an American nonprofit support group based in New York City that helps surviving family members of aircraft crash victims. The organization was created by Heidi Snow, then fiancee of French ...

("ACCESS"), an American nonprofit support group, based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, which helps surviving family members of aircraft crash victims.

Playing career

* 1990–1995

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

* 1995–1996 French League – Ducs d'Angers

References

External links

*
Necrology on Time.com
1971 births 1996 deaths Sportspeople from Roubaix Accidental deaths in New York (state) Ducs d'Angers players French ice hockey defencemen Harvard Crimson men's ice hockey players Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1996 Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in the United States TWA Flight 800 {{France-icehockey-bio-stub